Balancing your site between SEO performance and monetizing hosted ads is a delicate dance.

Maybe you created your website because you had something creative to share with the world. But as you grow and get busier, you need extra income to support or justify the work you put into your site. Or, possibly, you built your site with the intention of generating income from hosted advertisements. Whatever the reason, online advertising is vital for many website owners.

But hosting ads on your website isn’t all free money. There are trade-offs one must consider when choosing to populate your site with advertisements. Without carefully considering different aspects of your hosted ads, you run the risk of alienating your core audience, breaking your website, or even ruining your website’s SEO performance.

Today, we’d like to take a look at that last point because it often gets overlooked. Many sources will talk about the user experience, which is definitely important. But, if you’re not careful, poorly executed website advertisements can hurt your SEO performance.

Google has introduced a lot of updates to its ranking algorithms over the years. Their goals are almost always to get people to the content they’re actually searching for and not spammy sites. Take Core Web Vitals in 2021. This update placed a bigger emphasis on factors like how quickly a page is visible, how long it takes before a user can interact with the page, and the visual stability of the elements on the page. Run afoul of any of these, and your website will drop in rankings.

On-page ads can negatively impact most of these points and can see you on the wrong side of past SEO algorithm changes. So, let’s look at some of the ways you can ensure ads you run on your website won’t negatively affect your website’s SEO.

Monitor Page Load Speed

Page load speed has long been a critical factor for both user experience and SEO. Ensure that ads on your website do not significantly slow down your load times. Whenever you can, try to choose ad formats and networks that prioritize fast loading and/or implement lazy loading techniques to load ads only when they are visible to the user. Check-in regularly on your website’s speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, and address any issues promptly.

Keep Everything Mobile-Friendly

Most internet users will view your site on mobile devices, so it is crucial to ensure that ads are optimized for mobile performance. More and more Google updates favor mobile performance first. Any advertising your run should be mobile-responsive and seamlessly integrate into the overall design of your website. Test your ads across various mobile devices and screen sizes to ensure they won’t break your page or user experience. The latest release of the Conditional Ad Appearance Add-on provides a great way to handle responsive ads.

Use Only Relevant & High-Quality Ads

Always try to ensure that any ads you run align with your website’s content and target audience. It will make you seem more polished and professional and will help make sure you don’t wind up frustrating your users and cause higher bounce rates. While it can be tempting to seek out higher paydays, avoid low-quality or spammy ads that will hurt your website’s credibility. Regularly review and update your ad settings to maintain ad relevance and quality. Also, only work with ad networks that allow you to control the types of ads displayed on your site.

Consider Your Ad Placement

Carefully look at the placement of ads on your website to avoid negatively impacting user experience and SEO. Avoid intrusive ad formats that obscure your site’s main content or disrupt the browsing experience. Place ads strategically in non-intrusive areas, such as the sidebar, header, or footer. Maintaining a clear visual distinction between ads and organic content helps users differentiate between the two. You might think about consulting with a professional graphic designer or Web Development company that will be able to advise you on creating the best ad placement strategy.

Optimize Ad Metadata

Optimizing your ad metadata for SEO is no different from what you need to do for your website’s content. You need to ensure that ad titles, descriptions, and alt tags are relevant, descriptive, and contain appropriate keywords. This will help search engines understand the context and relevance of the ads, helping to improve their visibility in search engine results pages.

Perform Regular Website Audits

Establish scheduled times throughout the year where you’ll look at your website to identify and address any issues related to ads that may be impacting your SEO. You’ll want to stay on top of any changes in search engine algorithms (check back here – we stay on top of the latest online advertising trends) as they shift some of what you’re doing. Often, things that are “best practice” one year can fall out of favor the next. Keep an eye on your website’s organic search traffic, bounce rates, and user engagement metrics to detect any sudden drops or anomalies that may be caused by ads.

In Conclusion

Monetizing your website through ads is a common practice that we encourage at AdSanity.

But it’s crucial to ensure that any ads you host on your website don’t negatively impact your website’s SEO performance. By using the tips above, you can strike a balance between revenue generation and safeguarding your website’s SEO integrity. It’s a nice bonus that most positive SEO metrics also help ensure a solid user experience as well!

We’re here to help if you’re struggling with what to look at or how to get the balance correct. Our blog has many helpful articles covering topics like how to optimize ads, what ad sizes to use, trends, and more. It’s worth following.

Also, our AdSanity plugin has features built in that will help you choose the right ad sizes, display the right ads with the right content and more. You can get started with AdSanity Today.